Initial Report: Dog with cyst.

Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 23:19:43 -0700

Question or Concern im calling since morning no one answer the fone and were requsting to help a dog infront of a old house may cyst sya sa kaniyang tummy sumasayad na yung bukol niya gusto ko lapitan pero bka sakmalin ako pag hinawakan ko sya.

i need your assistance to the dog problem.

PAWS Note: This report is actually already addressed by the following FAQS:

All underline/bold emphasis in the succeeding emails below were done to highlight key points in this website.

PAWS Response

Date: Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 3:01 PMSubject: re: dog with tumorWe are sorry but our shelter staff has just informed us that the phone has been out of order since this morning. We are still waiting for the PLDT technical personnel to fix it.

As to your concern about the dog -- is this dog an owned pet? If it is, the best course of action would be to speak to the owner and ask him to bring the dog to a vet for proper diagnosis and treatment. PAWS operates a low-cost clinic so the owner may also opt to bring the dog to us. Please inform the owner though that we only accept walk-in consultations from 1pm to 3pm, Monday to Saturday (except Wednesday). As it doesn't seem like they will make it today, they may bring the dog to the clinic tomorrow (Oct 25).

If this is a stray dog you wish to help, you may also bring it to the PAWS clinic where PAWS may extend free medical assistance. However, in exchange for this, we would ask that you commit to temporarily fostering the dog. You see, our shelter is currently at maximum capacity with no room for additional rescue cases. A committed foster home is necessary to ensure that once we treat this dog, he recovers well and is no longer exposed to various other risks on the streets. We will have you sign a foster agreement to this effect. Similarly, you may bring the dog for diagnosis and treatment tomorrow (Oct 25) from 1:00pm to 3:00pm. As there are many other pet owners who consult with our vet, we ask that you be prepared to queue and wait your turn.

If unwilling to foster this dog, you may ask someone else to be the fosterer. Please bring this person with you to the PAWS clinic when you bring the dog so that he/she may sign the foster agreement and then bring the dog home with him/her. If unable to foster and unable to find someone else who is willing to, then the only recourse would be to call your local pound officers so that the dog can be collected and impounded where after the lapse of the holding period, should no one claim or adopt the dog, he will be euthanized.

Please advise us what you wish to do moving forward.

Thank you.

2nd reply from sender

nakakalat yung dog sa isang old house hindi ko malapitan ng maayos dahil baka sakmalin ako kung pde sana mag under siya ng surgery para magamot. by the way im XXXXXX, the head artistic director of teatro artistas philippines we would like also to help your organization. kindly help the dog and i will adopt that dog.you my contact me at 0927xxxxxxx / xxxxxxx

Sincerely,xxxxxxxx

2nd reply from PAWS

We could request a volunteer to assist you with the dog extraction but it is important that we establish ownership of the dog first.PAWS does not have pet seizing powers so if this is an owned dog, we cannot just pick up the dog without his consent.If you are able to locate the owner, ask him if he is willing to relinquish ownership of the dog to you.This way, we are able to assist the dog faster. If he is unwilling to relinquish the dog and is also unwilling to have his dog treated, then the only other way we would be able to seize the dog is in coordination with local barangay officials and the police after we have filed a case of animal cruelty against the neglectful owner and we would need your affidavit in order to do this. But I could be getting ahead of myself here. Hopefully, we won't have to do any of all this. If no one claims ownership of the dog, then it will be easier.

As to your request for animal extraction assistance, we would have to ask you to pick up the volunteer or PAWS staff from the shelter. As you may know, we are a volunteer-based NGO with very limited resources. And as we are currently in the thick of preparations for an upcoming fundraising event, our lone shelter van is busy running logistical errands for this. If you are able to do this, then we may be able to spare an available volunteer or caretaker to assist you with the extraction. Tomorrow will be the best time to do this as we have an event on Saturday and the shelter will be closed.

I am copy-furnishing our shelter staff of this email trail so that they can arrange for a volunteer or caretaker to assist you if you are amenable to picking up the volunteer or caretaker from the PAWS shelter tomorrow. Please let us know what time.

3rd reply from sender

it seems itz my problm now! frankly speaking i have my work to be done and im only asking if you can help the dog but your not willing to help if you don't want to help itz ok for me! let the dog died.thank you for your time this is my last email.

Sincerely,xxxxxxx

Final reply from PAWS

I'd like to clarfiy -- this was never our problem to begin with. Stray animal control is under the City Veterinarian's Office. They are the government agency paid for by our taxes to act on problems like this.We are an NGO. We are not funded by your taxes. We do what we can to help animals in need as is our mission but within the limits of our own resources. In this particular instance, you have personally experienced what these limitations are. We are sure you feel that this dog's need was urgent. We do too. But unlike you who only see this one dog needing help, we see the 300 plus other animals that are already currently under our care and also need our continuing support of their needs.

We spend roughly around PhP200,000 monthly for the upkeep of the shelter alone. If we were to rely on donations alone, who's to say how long the dogs and cats in our care are going to have food available for their sustenance? Animal food doesn't just drop from the sky like manna from heaven and into their food bowls. The medical care of one shelter dog named Patty for example, who has twisted hind legs because of being run over and in addition, suffers from a transmissible viral tumor does not come to us all wrapped up in a bow. And Patty is just one of the dogs in our quarantine area needing medical attention.

This is why the fundraising event we have is just as important if we are to continue helping animals. This is why we cannot just drop everything (especially when the event is already tomorrow), and then come to the aid of this one dog.This is why as you are the concerned citizen who reported this dog needing help to us, we would hope that you would go beyond just reporting and feeling sorry for the dog and actually act on it. Because this is the only way that the gaps in between can be bridged. We have offered you what we are willing to do given all this so please do not question our willingness to help. The rest, we hope, would have been up to you to act on if you truly wished for this dog to be helped.

We understand that you are busy. Guess what -- we are a volunteer-based org composed of ordinary citizen who also have work and personal responsibilities to attend to on a daily basis. The difference is that we choose to not stop at just feeling sorry but actually try to do something concrete to translate this into results. This is what we would have hoped you are willing to do too. We thank you also for your time and as you have chosen to not foster this dog anymore, this will also be our last email to you.

Thank you.

CONSIDER THE FOLLOWING FACTS:

If one chooses to report to an NGO like PAWS instead of to BAI-AWD (the government agency in charge of animal welfare) or the barangay (government employees paid by your taxes), please know that rescue could take
anywhere from a few hours to a few days or weeks depending on the
completeness of information provided by the concerned citizen, the availability of a PAWS volunteer and the availability of a foster home for the
animal. This is why.....

Concerned citizens in the immediate vicinity are actually the FIRST LINE OF ASSISTANCE for the animal in need.

PAWS, being a volunteer-based NGO (non-government organization), is not set-up for rapid deployment. PAWS is able to help with due consideration to our limited resources (space, funds, manpower and only 1 heavily used shelter van among other things).

PAWS is not like Animal Cops or heavily funded SPCAs that you watch on tv.

PAWS offered free vet assistance for the dog in this report if the citizen could bring the dog to PARC.PAWS
offered to find an available volunteer or caretaker to assist with
extraction of the dog if the citizen
could take care of transportation (since citizen said he would adopt the dog and since he wanted immediate action and PAWS van was not available).Is this not help?

The delay in helping the animal is usually caused by - the citizen's unwillingness to provide complete information, including the willingness to foster the dog or find a fosterer, or the unwillingness to bring the animal to a vet clinic (whether it be the PARC Clinic or another nearby clinic)- the citizen who does not understand what PAWS is and what PAWS can do to help the animals and instead continues to demand immediate rescue when it is not feasible.